It’s all about perception, we suppose. While the forthcoming “Gravity” boasts no shortage of dazzling visual effects, heart pumping thrills and yes, 3D, it’s still relatively lean in both size and scope. Running 90 minutes and featuring two main characters, it’s far from the bloat of most blockbuster movies, a fact that isn’t lost on director Alfonso Cuarón.

“When I saw ‘Pacific Rim,’ I said, ‘Man, I’ve been three-and-a-half years now doing ‘Gravity,’ and now you’re making me feel that I just did this tiny, tiny indie Sundance film.’ But what I love about ‘Pacific Rim’ is it’s done without any post-modernist, ironic approach,” the director told In Contention about his friend Guillermo Del Toro‘s film. “He really loves his characters. He loves his monsters. And at the core of it, what he loves is the characters inside the robots.”

But “Gravity” may not have happened if not for another movie falling apart. In a lengthy interview with David Poland (watch below), Cuarón notes that this sci-fi flick only came about after the project you probably forgot about, “A Boy And His Shoe,” couldn’t get off the ground. The film, which at one point had Charlotte Gainsbourg, Guillaume Canet and Daniel Auteuilattached to star, would’ve told the story of a young French girl in Scotland with her family for the summer holidays who crosses paths with two gypsy Scottish boys.

Whether or not that’ll get rebooted we’ll see, but for now, “Gravity” arrives on October 4th. Check out the new TV spot, featurette and interview below.